Study: Looking at Your Smartphone at Night Can Make You More Tired the Next Day

A new study out of Michigan State University really just confirms something we’ve suspected all along: Your smartphone is ruining any chance you’ve got at a restful night’s sleep. The study, which polled 82 upper-level managers and 161 employees, found, not at all surprisingly, that those checking their handsets after 9 p.m. are paying for it the next morning, causing what the Telegraph referred to as a smartphone “hangover.”

There are a slew of mental and physical reasons why that’s the case: For starters, smartphones have the tendency to engage you when you’re supposed to be shutting down for the night, making it difficult to detach from work. And there’s the light they emit: a blue hue that works to inhibit melatonin in a viewer’s system, losing the ever-important sleep chemical.

The results of all of this are not too dissimilar from a hangover, as The Telegraph points out, making the late-night phone user more tired and less engaged the next day. In other words, the always-connected nature of business devices may, in fact, be making us worse at our jobs in the long run.

Interestingly, the studies found that phones were specifically bad when compared with other electronics; nighttime smartphone users were worse off the following day than those who watched TV or used laptops or tablets.

The solution? While shutting off altogether isn’t in the cards for most of us these days, Johnson suggests that users turn off the phone earlier and get a bit more sleep when possible. Candy Crush Saga will still be there in the morning, people.

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